Approaching TL9?

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I'd probably go with 1990 and call it the networked age or something.

Thing is the networked age had already emerged in the 1980s - PCs, email, computer hacking, etc. The first big computer virus was in 1988. Most people weren't directly involved yet but that didn't mean the technology didn't exist. By comparison, TL 7 technically starts in 1940 but how common was TL 7 technology in the 1940s? 1980 seems as good a starting point as any.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by maximara

Sean Punch even wrote a piece regarding the change that he summed up as "Tech level 8 did not really happen quite the way we thought it would".

Nice bit of irony in that micro/nano science hasn't advanced as fast as expected. There's a school of thought that the most rapid technological development is behind us and we can expect slower progress in the future. So a future revised GURPS TL may stretch out the time periods for TL 8, 9, etc.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Infornific

Thing is the networked age had already emerged in the 1980s - PCs, email, computer hacking, etc. The first big computer virus was in 1988. Most people weren't directly involved yet but that didn't mean the technology didn't exist. By comparison, TL 7 technically starts in 1940 but how common was TL 7 technology in the 1940s?

Quite common if you're talking about military applications. But the war delayed civilian implementation.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Infornific

Thing is the networked age had already emerged in the 1980s - PCs, email, computer hacking, etc.

Sure, but the social transformation really wasn't that notable until the 90s.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sure, but the social transformation really wasn't that notable until the 90s.

There's also price to eb considered.

We got our first computer in late 1997 after the internet had become such an obvious thing that we wanted access but inwe paid 10x as much in 2019 dollars as we did for a vastly superior model 1 year ago.

Then there's the differences between dial-up and highspeed connections.

I really wouldn't mind having a TL boundary between then and now.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

There's also price to eb considered.

We got our first computer in late 1997 after the internet had become such an obvious thing that we wanted access but inwe paid 10x as much in 2019 dollars as we did for a vastly superior model 1 year ago.

Then there's the differences between dial-up and highspeed connections.

I really wouldn't mind having a TL boundary between then and now.

Both points granted. But the technology was around if not omnipresent. The boundaries are somewhat arbitrary. I could see shifting the boundary to when the technology became common but I think you could make a case for moving other TLs forward a little. So TL 7 then would start in 1950 and TL 8 in 1990 or so.

[doctorevilbrain]

What in the world does velcro have to do with Bionics?!! Besides, everyone knows that Vulcans invented velcro! LOL.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Sure, but the social transformation really wasn't that notable until the 90s.

I'm reminded of jet aircraft, which were around in experimental use from 1939 and military use from 1944, yet didn't have any effect on civilian life until the introduction of the de Havilland Comet in 1952.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

What in the world does velcro have to do with Bionics?!! Besides, everyone knows that Vulcans invented velcro! LOL.

Velcro was originally inspired by the way a bur gets caught in hair. Bionics is the field of engineering based on biological systems.

The idea that it is primarily about prosthetics is incorrect, but bionic prosthetics are a thing: duplicating the function of the body parts they replace as closely as possible.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

When I was in Six Grade Pocket Calculators were being advertised in Popular Science Magazine for 600 dollars. I saw a better calculator for 3.50 in Dollar General. The cheap calculator had a memory that could store ten different numbers, sign, cosign, tangent, cotagent, and keys that let you choose what power or root you wanted.

The Popular Science ad was likely a high end calculator.

"By 1977, a liquid crystal display calculator known as the Teal LC811 sold regularly for $24.95, with a sale price of $19.95. By 1985, the solar-powered Sharp EL-345 sold for $5.95. Both of these calculators were made in Japan. The Sharp not only carried out arithmetic and found percentages, but had a square root key. Both calculators had limited memory for results of computations." ( Electronic Calculators—Handheld )

So there were really cheap calculators in the late 1970s and "dirt" cheap ones by the 1980s.